First birthday for Robertshaw Racing (from BTCC.Net)

This weekend's rounds of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill will see the first anniversary of Robertshaw Racing’s entry into the series. It was in Scotland at the beginning of September last yearthat the team entered the series with Alan Taylor in an ex-Team Dynamics Honda Integra.

Gary Robertshaw first met Alan nearly five years ago when he confirmed even at that early stage that he wished to eventually race in the BTCC. After several months of testing, Alan’s first races for Robertshaw Racing were in the 2005 Mini Cooper Challenge. 2006 saw an increase in racing activities as Alan competed once again in the Mini Cooper Challenge as well as several Clio Cup and Britcar events.

At the beginning of the 2007 season Gary and Alan discussed the possibility of moving up to the BTCC in 2008, whilst starting another season of Clio Cup and Britcar races. However events would begin to move much quicker than planned when Alan announced to the team that he had bought a Honda Integra from Simon Blankley and suggested that they should enter the next BTCC event at Knockhill.

“It was a bit of a shock” recalls Gary, “as we had discussed racing in 2008. Alan’s ambitions had always run parallel to my own for the team and I too had ambitions to rise to the BTCC, but this was to be a bit sooner than planned. At that time we were running five cars in the Clio Cup and two cars in the Mini Cooper Challenge, we were a bit stretched but the whole team rose to the challenge and off we went to Knockhill after a couple of shakedown runs with the car”.

Alan and the team were to land straight in at the sharp end as an eventful first race saw Alan finish in an incredible tenth place and score his and the team's first BTCC points at the first attempt. The rest of the weekend would prove more difficult with a 16th place finish and a retirement in the remaining two races. Nevertheless Robertshaw Racing had arrived in the British Touring Car Championship ahead of schedule.

“it was a baptism of fire in many respects” said Gary, “but everyone in the team acquitted themselves well and it gave us a great platform upon which to build towards 2008 and we felt we were ready when the opportunity arrived to run the Chevrolets”.

Since that first event almost twelve months ago Alan and the team have progressed consistently. At Knockhill Alan would qualify almost 10 seconds off the pole position time set by Darren Turner in his works Seat, this season Alan consistently qualifies within three seconds of the pole, a great improvement considering the amount of testing that is available on such a restricted budget and time table of a busy business man.

The team has also moved forward immeasurably since that first weekend in Scotland. Running for the first full season with a new team, with a car – the Chevrolet Lacetti – that has never raced in the BTCC and in Harry Vaulkhard, a young driver also new to the top level of British motor sport, it was always going to be a massively steep learning curve. A challenge that Gary and his team have risen too and have set the foundations for a stronger challenge in the 2009 season.